CHILDREN'S COLUMN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11541, 28 November 1900, Page 3

CHILDREN'S COLUMN.

DOLLY DRIVES THE POWDER-CART. [BY CHARLOTTE HAMMOND.] " Sat, Dolly, Dan Lewis wants me to go hunting with him this afternoon. Do you think you can take the team on to Lewiston alone?" , *

" Oh, yes," I cried eagerly, in answer to my brother's- question, " if youTl let me." " Well, I want to go with Dan awfully," Albert said, "and I don't see anything to hinder. The horses are as steady as sheep, and I shouldn't deliver any powder tins side of Lewiston, anyway." This was when the powder mills were in operation in North Buckfield, Maine, fully 30 years ago. Albert drove one of the twohorse teams for delivering the powder to customers." His route, lay from Buckfield through the intervening towns to Portland, and included several outlying towns in Cumberland County. Occasionally I accompanied my brother on these trips. Albert liked to have me along, partly for company, for there were long, lonely stretches on the road where never a, house nor 6ften a team were visible; and partly because he was fond of hunting, for while he made a detour with his gun I could drive the horses and meet him farther on. Game was plentiful then, and Albert often bagged a half-dozen partridges or as many rabbits in an hour or so. The powder was packed at that time chiefly in 25-pound. kec6 • and small flarks, each holding from half a pound to two pounds. All the country stores kept gunpowder for sale, and they obtained their supply from the powder-carts.

Albert and I soon became accustomed to the proximity of the powder, and commonly thought no more of the danger than if the cart had been filled with sawdust. Not so some of the people at places where we would stop for the night. " I haven't any objection to you and your sister and the horses putting up, with me," said one cautious man, "but I m not goin' to tempt Providence by keeping that pow-der-cart nigh my buildings." Albert would iaugh—he rarely argued the case— drive the powder-cart off to an open field a quarter of a mile or more distant, and leave it for the night, where. " If it did take a notion to blow up, it couldn't smash everything to splinters' —as one old lady remarked: There were persons, however, who did not have quite such a wholesome fear of the explosive in the powder-cart. Indeed, one season Albert was so much annoyed by petty pilferers that he coaxed Zach, the powdermill watchdog, to follow the cart and sleep in it overnight. Zach was a sort of mongrel, but a handsome, sleek-coated animal, and weighed over 100 pounds. He was the hero of an adventure worth relating. About two weeks after Zach began to follow the waggon, Albert and I were spending the night at a small hotel in Yarmouth. In the small hours I was roused from sound sleep by loud thumping on my brother's door, which was nearly opposite mine, across a little hall. The landlord was shouting in a voice of excitement, " Hullo ! I say there! There's trouble down in your pow-der-cart. Turn out quick, or somebody'll be killed down there-!

In some alarm I arose, threw up my window, and listened. The stable, where the cart had been left, was just below. " Get out! Murder !" cried a man in terror, " Get oat! Help! Aough-h!" he ended with a yell of pain. Intermingled with his cries were sounds of a struggle and low, threatening growls from a dog which, I doubted not, was Zach.

Albert hurried down; lanterns were brought, and a ludicrous scene was revealed. A great huiking fellow stood in the forward part of the cart, half-bent over the seat, holding a keg of powder in his arms. Zach had seized him by the back of his trousers, just above the knee; the sagacious dog stood to one side and all the fellow's kicks !>assrd harmlessly. If the man tried to leave the cart, Zach gripped the harder, and if he bent over to replace the keg Zach set his teeth a little deeper, and it w.is apparent from the thief s outcries of pa ; that the dog's teeth were fixed in more than trousers. A crowd had assembled, notwithstanding the unpropitious hour. Albert called the dog off; and as crestfallen a fellow as ever walked climbed out of the powder-cart, amid shouts of laughter from the bystanders. He went off muttering threats against till dog. As for Zach, he was praised and petted until his plebeian tail really took on an aristocratic curl, and he was further rewarded by the landlord's wife with a huge piece of Nver. This incident was noised abroad, and Zach gained such prestige that pilfering from the powder-cart ceased. Albert and his friend, Dan Lewis, waited to see me start with the powder-team before setting out on their hunt. Zach had Albert's place upon the seat beside mo. I was in high spirits, not a little elated at the thought of managing the horses quite alone. It was a warm September afternoon with a mellow haze upon the landscape, bathing the hills in purplish shadows, through which the sun shone lazily, as if his hard work over he were merely supervising, indolently, his ripened harvests. For weeks there had been no rain, and the fields were assuming that palo tan 'shade which belongs to drought; the roads were dry and dusty; the wayside trees and bushes had lost their ' green under a coat of powdery dust which lay upon their leaves like the pile on faded velvet; and the shrivelled edges of the leaves were curled and tipped with brown. The horses" walked most of the time, trotting only on the level stretches, for the cart was heavily loaded. The road was not a much travelled one, lonely some ' would have called it, with its long woodland reaches. That it was not much frequented was a source of satisfaction to me, for I had an inexperienced driver's dread of meeting teams, more particularly as the highway was so narrow in places that turning was an impossibility. My general course that afternoon lay a little to the south-west; there was hardly a breath of air stirring among the treetops, and it was oppressively warm. With a feeling of thankfulness for the welcome shade, I drove the horses into the long stretch of pine woods through which the road lay. I fancied the pines dropped their branches more than usual, and that their needle clusters hung more limp. The horses' hoofs struck with a soft resonance on the grassgrown highway. I had driven only a short distance into the woods when there came a sudden faint rustle overhead, and the languid pines began to stir under the impulse of the awakened wind. Zach stretched out his nose and sniffed the air suspiciously. "What is it, old doggie?" I asked. "Do you think a woodchuck has run along here?" He was a famous woodchuck-hunter. For answer, he gently thumped the leather cushion with his tail and continued his sniffing, his eyes fixed straight ahead. I could not hear anything except the wind, which had suddenly become so strong that the pine boughs were tossing wildly. But a little further on I smelled smoke, and shortly after passed a few blackened pine stubs; a delicate, almost imperceptible film of smoke was rising from two or three old roots. Little heaps of white ashes lay about, and, stirred by the breeze, whirled in small eddies under the horses' feet. A faint twinge of anxiety shot through my mind at the idea of a fire coming near my inflammable load, and wishing to get out of the woods as soon as possible I shook the reins and chirruped to the horses. Suddenly a volume of smoke poured down into the road. In an instant, as it seemed, the roar and crackle of fire broke on my ears. Through the smoke I saw dusky flames shook up the trunk of a tall pine a few yards to the right. Even then the full peril of my situation did" not dawn upon me. The fire was away from the road, and I thought it would be an easy matter to drive past it. Vainly I spoke to the frightened horses and shook the reins, trying to urge them onward. They began backing, in an attempt to turn round. Had it been possible to turn on the narrow road, I would have done so, but already the back of the waggon had struck a tree and the heavy vehicle tipped dangerously. . In' this emergenoy I seized the whip and struck the horses sharply. With a snort and a plunge, they leaped forward and broke into a run. Suffocating clouds of resinous smoke poured into the highway, and now and then a cinder fell.

I strained my eyes to look ahead, but could see nothing for the smoke. The roar of the flames in the woods sounded thunderously loud and ominous. Cinders and burning pine-needles were blown upon all sides. The baok of the cart was open; there was nothing to prevent them drifting

in on the powder kegs! ' I glanced back at the load "With the sharpest thrill of terror T. had yet known. > Even as I looked one spark fell on the casks, then a second and a third! What could I do to avert this danger! There was no covering for the rear of the cart, and no horse blankets. Then I remembered my shawl under the seat: Seizing it, I scrambled over the seat among the kegs, leaving the horses to go as they pleased, and spread the shawl over the hindmost casks. Then I «rept back, tumbling from side to side, and being bumped and bruised as the old cart swayed and swung. The fire was nearer the highway now. Curling flames crept, serpent-like, up the trunks of the roadside trees. Blazing pineneedles dropped upon the old canvas top and. on the horses, but fell harmlessly on the animals' wet sides, for they were reeking with perspiration. I stood up and gave *, hasty glance behind. The old canvas was smoking in half a dozen places. For a moment. I gazed in helpless fear. Then I threw the reins over the dasher, leaped upon the seat, and clinging to the frame brushed off the sparks with my bare hand.' But I could not reach them all. Quickly divesting myself of my dress-skirt, I used that as a brush, and managed to sweep the old top free of fire. Fortunately, •mv head was protected by a big sunbonnet, such as was then worn by all country girls. Zach had found his position on the seat too insecure and had jumped back upon the load, where he crouched, alert, watching for sparks. If one blow into the cart, the sagacious fellow would strike it with his paw or catch it in his mouth. I could trust Zach to keep the sparks off the powder casks. Albert had taught the dog to put out burning splinters in this way, and now the trick stood us in good stead. The horses were doing their utmost. Patches of white foam flecked their sides; but I urged them on, for we seemed to crawl through those blazing, roaring pine woods. I still stood on the seat, brushing the cinders from the canvas top, turning now and then to look at the horses, and peer anxiously ahead. The old cart jolted and swung from side to side, and several times I was near falling. The heat and smoke were awful. My smarting eyes rained "The fire must not get to the powder! The fire must not get to th* powder.!" I repeated over and over to myself. Desperate as I was, it did not occur to me>to leave the team. My only thought throughout that perilous ride was that the horses had been entrusted to me, and I must bring them and the load safely through. "Go 'long, Dick! Go 'long, Jim!" I shouted to the galloping horses; and on we rumbled while flames began leaping up the nearer roadside trees, and off in the woods the fire roared and snapped and crackled, and several times I heard the crash of falling pines. Suddenly Zach barked sharply, -and I sprang down from the seat and peered inside. " What is it, Zach? What is it?" I cried.

For answer he barked louder, and I could see that lie was scratching frantically at the powder-casks. I made my way backward over the kegs to the dog, who pawed and barked more violently as 1 came near. With all the quickness and strength I could command I seized the kegs, one, two, three of them, and burled them out behind. The sides of two of the remaining casks were glowing ember-bright, ready the next moment to burst into flame. The explosion of one keg meant destruction to everything! In a frenzy of terror, I seized one burning cask and then the other and flung thorn out upon the ground. The next instant there was a bright flash followed by a thunderous report, and then another. I regained the waggon-seat and again looked to the canvas top. I was none too soon, for the cloth, dried' by the heat, was beginning to blase in the "centre where a burning cluster of pine-needles had fallen. I thrashed it with the dress-skirt; but the skirt itself was soon in a blaze and I flung it away. The next moment I had climbed on top of the canvas and fought tho fire with my bare hands. After a sharp struggle I mastered it. Fortunately the road was smooth at this place, or I must certainly have been thrown off. At last I could see an opening ahead. The poor horses panted and laboured, and I feared that they would not hold out. For a dozen yards the fire was on both sides of us, not 10ft from the 1 road, and the smoke and heat were terrible. But we were through it in a minute, and came into a more open place. Here the wind changed, and the imminent danger was over. The woods still stretched out ahead, but the fire seemed to have already spent its force here, and clumps of blackened, stared pines stood on either hand, some of them yet smouldering. The woods soon closed in again, and from this sign I remembered that we were nearly out of the forest. The blackened trunks and reddened foliage of the pines, still glowing here and there, showed that the fire had been here too. The spent horses slackened their speed. Suddenly there came a sharp gust of wind and then a crack and a crash, and one of the half-burned pines fell, striking the hind part of the cart. The ashen frame gave way and a part of the canvas top was torn off. The shock momentarily cheeked the horses, but the terrified creatures leapt forward and the cart went free, the tree tumbling off into the road. Had it fallen a little earlier it would have struck the horses or barred further progress, and shut us in a trap at the very moment that I saw safety ahead. A little further on, and the burning woods ! were behind. The horses, panting and trembling with fear and exhaustion, checked their mad run and walked slowly forward. I shook all over, and my teeth chattered as if with cold. But Zach climbed back upon the seat beside me as if nothing had happened. I drove the team into Lewiston that evening. The horses looked jaded. Five pow-der-kegs were missing. The remnants of the canvas top were scorched and burned. " For goodness' sake, Dolly, why didn't you leave the old cart to blow up?" Albert cried.

" I didn't think of it," I said meekly. " Well, you're a brave little goose!" he said admiringly. " You did what I wouldn't have done. I wouldn't have gone through those burning woods as you did for all the powder-carts in the country !" I was proud and pleased at Albert's praise. To think that I, a girl, had done what he wouldn't do! Zach, too, came in for his share of glory.—Boston Youths' Companion.